IMHO a properly delivered âWho raised you?â is waaay more effective on Bigots than any amount of lecturing.
Folks donât end up as Bigots because they have well-researched and nuanced opinions on things. They end up as Bigots because itâs emotionally satisfying to have people to blame for your problems. Who needs self-reflection and growth when you can point a finger and go âyour fault!â
A lot of Bigotry stems from a set of Narratives that could be neatly summarized as âisnât it terrible how Good People such as ourselves are getting deprioritized in favor of [Queers/Coloreds/Women/Jews]?â
If you engage directly with their hateful opinions, you have not meaningfully deconstructed their illusory narrative about Being A Good Person Who Is Oppressed.
By going âWho raised you?â You have invalidated their stance. You call the onus of their behavior onto their heads, or the heads of their parents. Suddenly, theyâre not a Good Person, theyâre a Shithead; and since these kinds of folks so often also believe that Rights should be taken away from people for Bad Behavior, they have to scramble to re-prove their position as a Good Person before they can start attacking again.
Obviously this is gonna be contingent on them giving a fuck about your opinion, but for Allies who want to emotionally punch back against this wave of Fascism, I really want to reiterate that the anger and hate is so often not really about whoever theyâve decided to blame for their failures; itâs usually about their high opinion of themselves, and worldâs unwillingness to give them everything they want on a silver platter.
Donât bother trying to educate someone who had no interest in researching their own opinion before deciding that an entire group needs to go. Just call them out as the Shitheads they are.